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Native American communities are often left in information “blind spots” because federal and state governments restrict public health data.

That’s according to KFF Health News.

It reported federal investigators and tribal epidemiologists documented multiple obstacles, including confusion over data-sharing policies, poor or old data, and strict privacy rules for sensitive health issues such as HIV and substance misuse.

And in 2022, the Government Accountability Office published a report that confirmed tribal health officials’ concerns, including at the Great Plains tribal epidemiology center.

Federal investigators learned that health officials in Native American communities dealt with federal agencies lacking clear processes, policies, and guidelines for sharing data.

Tribal health officials reported that data denials hindered their ability to respond to serious health issues, including contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic and a syphilis outbreak in the Midwest and Southwest.

They add that while some data sharing has improved, there’s more work to be done.

In South Dakota, Rapid City Area Schools superintendent Nicole Swigart has been relieved of her duties by the local school board.

This follows reported remarks published in a recent civil rights investigation about Indigenous students.

SDPB’s C.J. Keene reports.

The decision was finalized at this week’s school board meeting after two-and-a-half hours of discussion and public comment.

In the report, quotes are attributed to Swigart about tribes not valuing education, informing students they don’t need to graduate, and saying the district struggles with “Indian time”.

Rapid City Schools has the highest proportion of indigenous students in the state, and these comments stirred deep controversy.

Critically, Swigart now denies making the comments published in the report.

“There is no proof that I made these alleged derogatory statements, yet this board is terminating my employment anyway. The entire disciplinary process has been unjust and punitive. I accepted the boards 30-day suspension beginning on July 2, and I fully expected to return to work. Yet without warning or explanation on July 18, I was sent a notice of intent to terminate.”

Swigart is not without supporters, many of whom spoke to her character and long history with the district.

However, some aggressively confronted the board following the decision, accusing board members of being influenced by a Rapid City area Native advocacy group.

NDN Collective local organizers attend the RCAS Board of Education meeting where members of the community expressed their frustration and disappointment with the racist comments made by Superintendent Nicole Swigart; calling for immediate action to be taken by the board.

— NDN Collective (@ndncollective) June 5, 2024

In turn, visibly emotional members of the board expressed the difficulty and weight this decision came with.

That includes board vice president Jamie Clapham.

“First of all, I honor and acknowledge the 33 years Mrs. Swigart served in this district, and the hundreds and probably thousands of lives she impacted. That is to be commended, celebrated, and never forgotten. This is likely the most difficult situation that I have faced in this seat. I sit in this chair because I care, and I’m committed to this community.”

Ultimately, the board voted 6-1 to fire Swigart.

That termination is effective August 16.

Assistant Superintendent Cory Strasser will serve as the interim superintendent.

And on this day in 1975, 100 Native American protesters took over the Portland, Oreg. offices of the Bonneville Power Administration.

The occupation was part of several activities organized to protest what they said was federal repression on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian reservations.

Similar occupations were staged at Alcatraz Island in 1969, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Office in Washington, DC in 1972.

 

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Photo: Native American Development Corporation clinical laboratory scientist Stephanie Uffelman with “Joey”, one of the lab’s two analyzers. (Kayla Desroches / Yellowstone Public Radio)

An Indigenous-led laboratory is open for business in Billings, the largest city in Montana.

The lab is starting small with plans to scale up.

Yellowstone Public Radio’s Kayla Desroches reports, the Native American Development Corporation recently cut the ribbon on its new lab in downtown Billings.

The lab officially opened in July and is capable of processing blood and urine for drug content.

Native American Development Corporation CEO Leonard Smith says this facility answers the need for more testing capacity and is also unique in the region as a Native-led laboratory.

“We felt that it would bring the kind of return that we need to become sustainable, and continue to offer good services to our community.”

Following the ribbon cutting, clinical laboratory scientist Stephanie Uffelman shows Smith and other NADC leadership the one-room laboratory, located inside a St. John’s United building for seniors.

Uffelman stops in front of a boxy white machine labeled “Joey” and opens a drawer to reveal a tray of empty tubes.

“So each patient will sit in a vial.”

Uffelman named both of the lab’s analyzers after characters from the TV show Friends.

She gestures over to the second machine, named after Joey’s fake identical twin.

“And this guy in the beginning was actually giving me a lot of problems, so he’s my problem child, my Carl. [laugh].”

She says the machines can turn results within a period of 24 to 72 hours.

“These are what’s gonna produce the most revenue for us.”

Native American Development Corporation CEO Leonard Smith says the capabilities of the lab will grow.

He says the lab will be available to the NADC’s Urban Indian Health and Wellness Center in addition to the community at large, with plans to expand its services from substance use testing to other metrics.

“We hope to be able to market to the tribes as well as the private sector entities. I just take great pride in seeing at this point.”

Native voting-rights advocates contend two Arizona laws have made it more difficult for Native voters to be civically engaged, despite already existing structural barriers.

Alex Gonzalez reports.

Patty Ferguson-Bohnee (Pointe-au-Chien) with the Indian Legal Clinic at Arizona State University says House Bills 2492 and 2243 will unfairly impact Native voters.

HB 2492 mandates that voters present evidence of a physical mailing address, which Ferguson-Bohnee says will present problems for many Native people who simply don’t have one.

HB 2243 requires county recorders to terminate a voter’s registration if they suspect someone is not a US citizen.

The pieces of legislation are being challenged in court, but Ferguson-Bohnee says education and outreach are also key.

“So trying to translate to tribal people in their own terms, in their own communities, why it’s important to participate in voting can already be a challenge when you’re dealing with a legal infrastructure that has tried to deny your existence.”

Ferguson-Bohnee says that when it comes to Native voting, there have been steps forward and then backwards.

“There is some feeling within Indian Country and among some Native people is ‘Why should I be participating in this process?’ But when you recognize that people who are elected actually have touch points in your everyday life, even if you’re in a remote location, because of this federal trust relationship.”

Ferguson-Bohnee adds that realities on reservations are often very different than off the reservation, and contends that is something that should be taken into account by elected officials when creating policy.

 

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Photo courtesy Mercury Justice For Grassy Narrows / Facebook

A northern Ontario First Nation is appealing to an international human rights commission over mercury contamination that has continued for decades.

As Dan Karpenchuk reports, the Grassy Narrows First Nation has also said it would sue the governments of Canada and Ontario over the contamination.

The moves are aimed at getting those governments to do more to tackle the mercury contamination of the English-Wabigoon River system in northern Ontario.

Grassy Narrows First Nation recently told a virtual hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that many of its members have lost hope, and that many struggle with work or school.

They say after decades of mercury poisoning they want justice.

Canada is one of 35 member states of the Organization of American States, which oversees the IACHR.

Judy DaSilva of Grassy Narrows says many in her community, up to 90%, live with the debilitating symptoms of mercury poisoning.

“Our way of life has been totally destroyed. Like our people were proud fishermen and land users, and hunters. And then the poison came and took all that away. And our social and economical fabrics have been broken.”    

Most of the contamination comes from the fish caught locally.

A recent study by researchers at Ontario’s Western University shows that waste water from the Dryden paper mill is mixing with mercury dumped in water decades ago to make methyl mercurate, an even more toxic cocktail.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the mill dumped nine tons of mercury into the river.

Grassy Narrows Chief Rudy Turtle wants action now.

“Especially with the new generation and the children that are growing up the river should be cleaned up for them and they should be compensated because they are still taking mercury into their system.”

The mill’s owner says it only recently bought the company and would review the study.

But the First Nation is suing Ontario and the federal government alleging that the governments’ allowed the river system to be contaminated and then failed to do something about it and at the same time authorizing industrial activities that made the situation even worse.

Chief Turtle says he believes something would have been done if it had happened to a different region and population.

He wants authorities to ban industrial land use in or near the territory.

Meanwhile, construction is expected to begin soon on a Mercury Care Home and take up to three years to complete.

Work is already underway on a new health care facility.

Ottawa says it has committed to the construction of a new water treatment plant, but lawyers for the First Nation call those actions a band-aid solution.

A Native youth art festival recently celebrated its 10th anniversary on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota.

Kathleen Shannon has more.

The RedCan Graffiti Jam is an art showcase set on the Eagle Butte campus of the Cheyenne River Youth Project, a Lakota youth advocacy organization founded in 1988.

This year’s event featured hoop dancing, poetry reading, community meals, skateboard painting and a rock band from Rapid City.

Fourteen graffiti artists from across the world made nine murals in the campus’ art park and the greater community.

Given the group’s mission to provide opportunities for kids, its Executive Director Julie Garreau says the jam is about more than art.

“You know, it’s community development. It is youth development. I would also say it’s like cultural reclamation. I think it’s language revitalization, because we’re using Lakota language on our walls. I think it’s also healing.”

Garreau says the jam was designed as a one-time event a decade ago to improve decrepit buildings in town. But it was so well-received, she says the organization keeps hosting it.

She adds next year, the group has been invited to bring a version of the RedCan Jam to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

This story includes original reporting by Kate Mothes for Arts Midwest.

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The U.S. Interior Department says it reviewed over a million pages of federal records to produce a two-volume report on Native boarding schools.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) released the second volume last month.

As KNBA’s Rhonda McBride reports, boarding school survivors and their advocates welcome the report, but say it only scratches the surface.

Although Government-run boarding schools for Alaska Native children go back to the 1800’s and continued into the 1960’s, Alaskans have only begun to come to terms with their impact.

The Interior Department’s report counted more than 400 federal Indian boarding schools in the United States and its territories, with 22 in Alaska.

The second volume also lists the number of deaths of Native American children at these schools – about a thousand nationwide, 32 in Alaska.

This lastest report also includes the personal stories of boarding school survivors like Jim LaBelle

“They’re pretty shocking really. The hard part has yet to happen, that is to do that really hard research.”

In April, LaBelle and other Alaska Native survivors shared their stories with oral historians, who traveled around the nation documenting boarding school trauma.

LaBelle told them about the sexual abuse students experienced at the Wrangell Institute in Southeast Alaska, where he was sent when he was eight-years-old.

LaBelle says the federal report, though extensive, is only part of Alaska’s story.

“It’s only beginning. We need to look at the churches that participated contractually.”

The federal report acknowledges that it only covers federal schools and not other institutions run by churches and religious organizations.

“You can’t make healing happen, unless you understand the wound.”

Benjamin Jacuk is Director of Indigenous Research at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. He has studied the records and the correspondence between churches and other institutions.

“It becomes crystal clear the motives. It really shows these were not meant to help Alaska Native, American Indian, Native Hawaiian people, but really a means to an end to erase us.”

In the federal report, Assistant Secretary Bryan Newland makes recommendations that include apologies to communities for forcibly taking children from their homes to assimilate them – as well as programs that offer healing through the revitalization of language and culture.

The historic link between the Choctaw Nation and victims of the Irish famine were honored this month with a new sculpture, as Seo McPolin reports from Ireland.

“The Gift” is a life-sized bronze statue, which marks the $170 donation from citizens of the Choctaw Nation to a Quaker relief organization in Ireland in 1847.

A million people died and another million emigrated during the Great Famine, which was largely caused by the colonialist policies of the British government.

When Irish-American sculptor Brendan O’Neill learned about this history, he was moved to create the piece, which he described during an interview with Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE.

“It is a life-sized sculpture of a woman, an older Choctaw woman, and a young man embracing her with one hand. Both of them extending out their arms in friendship and sympathy to the Irish.”

His original piece was installed at the Choctaw Cultural Centre in Oklahoma last year.

This month, he helped dedicate a replica at the National Famine Museum in Ireland.

The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe in New York is helping community members with cleanup efforts following Tropical Strom Debby.

The tribe declared a state of emergency over the weekend due to the impacts of the recent storm.

The tribe is encouraging residents to document flood damage and is providing disposal bins for cleanup efforts.

 

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A new federal Indian boarding school report found nearly 1,000 Native American children died while attending the schools created to strip them of their culture.

The Mountain West News Bureau’s Kaleb Roedel has more.

The report identified nearly 19,000 children who attended a boarding school between 1819 and 1969. But the government acknowledges there were more.

At the schools. teachers were known to do everything from cutting students’ hair to beating them for speaking their Native languages.

This investigation, led by the Interior Department, found marked and unmarked graves at 65 different school sites.

The agency says it is working with tribes that want remains repatriated.

Stacy Laravie (Ponca) is a member of a national tribal historic preservation group.

She urges the government to focus on…

“…coming up with solutions and ways to heal the trauma. And one part of apologizing or acknowledging would be future investments into tribal nations.”

In fact, the report recommends the U.S. provides funding for culturally based programs centered on intergenerational trauma, violence prevention, and revitalizing Native languages.

Research from the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition shows that by the 1920s, there were more than 60,000 children in the schools.

The Federal Communications Commission voted this week to establish a new alert code for missing and endangered people by delivering messages to the public over TV, radio, and wireless phones.

The alert code will help law enforcement agencies draw public attention to missing people of all ages who do not qualify for AMBER Alerts.

According to the FCC, the decision will support efforts to raise public awareness of missing Indigenous people.

The Southern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Ute Indian tribes recently got together for their annual friendly sports competition for young people.

Clark Adomaitis has more.

At the Ignacio High School gymnasium, young people from three tribes are playing volleyball against each other at the annual Tri-Ute Games.

This year, the Southern Ute Tribe is hosting its sister tribes, the Ute Mountain Ute and Ute Indian Tribes, in Ignacio, Colo.

Other sports taking place throughout the three-day gathering include archery, skateboarding, golf, and hand games.

K’ia Whiteskunk is the recreation director for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. She says that the three sister tribes gathering for this annual event shows unity.

“We have relatives from the other tribes that we don’t get to see. But this is a time that it helps to youth get to know each other and come together.” 

Over at the Southern Ute Bear Dance trail, athletes in colored shirts are running the Ute Warrior Challenge.

“Almost there, almost there, just good job, good job.”

Darnell Muniz is a recreation specialist at the Sun Ute Community Center. He’s guiding kids running along the road after they just slid through a slip and slide.

“The challenge is having them running bout half a mile on our Bear Dance trail, and then there at the park we have various events like army crawl, slip and slide.”

Muniz says that this year’s Tri-Ute games was the first one since the COVID-19 pandemic with all three tribes.

In 2022, the games only included two of the three sister tribes.

“They still had the temperature checks and also the mask mandate still so at that time there wasn’t that many participants.”

This year, the Southern Ute and Ute Indian Tribes opened up youth registration to second descendants of tribal members.

Muniz says over 300 youth athletes participated this year.

Next year’s Tri-Ute Games will likely be hosted by the Ute Indian tribe in Fort Duchesne, Utah.

 

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